Samuel Ajayi Crowther’s Journeys in Christian and Islamic Book History

Bibliographic Data

ID12958366
AuthorsStephen Ney (University of Sierra Leone, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume32
Issue1-2
Pages31-53
Publication date2019-05-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Sciences and Missions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1874-8945 • E-ISSN: 1874-8937
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/18748945-03103002
OpenAlexW2944291428
LanguageEN
References cited17

Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the Yoruba linguist and Anglican missionary bishop, interacted in the 1870s with communities of multilingual Islamic scholars on the north fringe of Yorubaland. This essay uses contemporary scholarship on the book culture of Ilọrin to shed light on Crowther’s letters, in particular his triumphant account of a formal audience with the emir of Ilọrin in 1872, during which his performance centred on the bilingual collection of Christian books he bore. He emphasized the uniqueness and novelty of his Christian books and their associated practices. Yet his accounts invite us to begin viewing Africa’s Christian and Islamic book histories through the same analytical frame, which reveals how they were constituted in part through their interactions. This allows us to see they had more in common than Crowther assumed and than many scholarly accounts of African book history assume, particularly in the areas of the physicality of books, the modes of performance associated with books, and the interpersonal transactions that books facilitate

Art · Creed · History of religions · Islam · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Theology · Yoruba · African history and culture analysis · Classics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Law · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Religious studies

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